Recording: Philippe Melanson + Nick Storring

Artist: Philippe Melanson + Nick Storring

Song: [edited excerpts]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), March 12, 2016.

Philippe Melanson + Nick Storring - [edited excerpts]

Playing to a rather full (but especially hushed) room, this was an especially quiet set — quiet enough that I should add the disclaimer my microphones couldn't really do it justice at all. But it's worth preserving, not only as a currently-rare example of Nick Storring playing an improvised set, but also to see Phil Melanson exploring some further avenues in low-volume percussion. Armed with a single large drumhead, there were shades of Tomasz Krawowiak's implied percussion, but it was combined with Melanson's own electroacoustic sensibility — his tools included a rolling ball on turntable amplified by a mic dangling from above. With a series of barely-audible rattles, squeaks, and bow-creaks in the near-darkness, this was the sort of music that forced the audience to close their eyes and lean in to try and gather in the sounds.